SOWEGA Beekeepers Club

About Us

OUR MISSION:To provide members and the community with technical beekeeping information and an
awareness of bees, beekeeping habitat, biology and safety. SOWEGA_Beekeepers
by laws

Join the SOWEGA Beekeepers to learn about bees and beekeeping. We invite experts in the field of beekeeping as guest speakers and have experienced club members share their
expertise. Club members do educational programs at local schools, teaching children about honey bees and honey. Members also educate with displays at wildlife festivals, Ag programs and participate in education programs at Chehaw Park.

The SOWEGA Beekeepers Club meets on the second Thursday of the month at 6:30 pm, at the Creekside Education Center at Chehaw Park, Albany,
Ga. We inspect the Chehaw Bee Yard the following Sunday at 1:00 pm. New members and visitors are welcome.

Interesting Facts about Honey bees:
1. Honey bees have remained unchanged for 20 million years, even though the world around them has changed.

2. Honey bees have been producing honey for at least 150 million years.

3. The honey bee was not known in the Americas until Spanish, Dutch, and English settlers introduced it near the end of the 17th century.

4. Honey bees have 4 wings.

5. Honey bees beat their wings 11,400 times per minute, thus making their distinctive buzz.

6. A honey bee flies about 12 miles per hour.

7. Honey bees have five eyes.

8. Honey bees communicate with one another by "dancing" and pheromones (scent).

9. The queen bee will lay about 1,000 to 1,500 eggs per day in the summer months, when the hive needs to be at its maximum population.

10. In the cold winter months, bees will leave the hive only to take a short cleansing flight.

11. Honey bees are fastidious about the cleanliness of their hive.

12. Honey bees do not die out over the winter. Instead they form a cluster in their hive to keep the queen and themselves warm. They Feed on the honey they collected during the warmer months.

13. It takes about 60 pounds of honey to provide enough energy for a colony of bees to survive the winter.

14. Each honey bee colony has a unique odor that members use like I.D. cards at the hive's entrance. Individual honeybees smell enough alike to
allow the guard bees to identify them as part of the colony.